The present invention relates to a submunition unit having a rotary parachute disposed at a tail of the unit beneath a releasable cover and provided with rigging lines attached to the unit.
Homing submunition units i.e. submunition units provided with a search head, are usually decelerated and stabilized by means of a rotary parachute. However, the rotary parachute which is intended to cause the submunition unit to rotate at low descending velocities while searching for a target cannot be activated at high subsonic speeds since it would then immediately become twisted. In order to decelerate the submunition unit to a sufficiently low speed which makes it possible for the rotary parachute to become effective, deceleration parachutes are employed so that the operational sequence is separated into a deceleration and stabilization phase with the aid of the deceleration parachute and a rotation of the system phase with the aid of the rotary parachute which is deployed only at low flow velocities. The use of two parachutes is expensive with respect to design as well as assembly.